The All New Club of Queer Trades

h/t K. Abel

Chesterton and Home Education

After reading this story, we can see that the single case in California has nothing to do with education or school. It has to do with potential abuse going on in the family.

Abuse must be dealt with, but the answer isn't: A) All children must be taught by experts in the Educational Field.

Last time I checked, Educational Professionals are just as tempted by sin as parents, ministers and boy scout leaders who are also ministers.

And the answer is also not B) No one in California can homeschool, because one family might have abused their children. If that were the case, California should also shut down all churches, schools, scout programs, camps, and also outlaw babysitting. Oh, and they should outlaw families, too. But I think they're already working on that.

Now, let's talk about the part of the California situation where the Teacher's Union happily reports that experts with degrees must teach all children.

Seeing as how Chesterton was vastly self- and home-educated, I think he'd be the first to point out the fallacy of having "experts" to rely on for the education of our country.

Chesterton was convinced that even without a college degree, most parents could care for children in all the usual ways: feeding, diapering, teaching to walk, talk, teaching right from wrong, rules, manners, and yes, even, the stuff of life, or what some people categorize as "education". If the California situation is true and the children are being abused, this has nothing to do with education, and is a failure in parenting, in love. It is sin. We all sin, but when someone sins in this way against a child, it is horrible, and we want to fix it. Hurray for California for feeling this way. But the "fix" isn't to stop homeschooling in California so that abuse stops. That answer lacks common sense.

Does a parent need a literature degree to tell a child a bedtime story? Does a parent need a degree in foreign language to teach a child their native tongue (which is foreign to the child)? Does a parent need a PhD in Math to teach the child sums and balancing check books, and making change at the store? Does a parent need to be a philosopher to teach their child right and wrong and how to be good? Does a parent need to be a theologian to teach him about God and take him to Church? Does a parent need to be a Social Services expert to teach their child manners and the normal social interactions of daily life?

The whole principle of having children within a family is that the parents, the mom and the dad, have this forever bond of love, which, in the understanding of the Church is a sacrament, which means a means of God's grace, which helps them raise their children lovingly, to the best of their ability. This grace provides the strength to do what needs to be done everyday: from cleaning up spilled milk, to caring for a child with the stomach flu, to teaching the child the names of the state capitals.

Now, no one is perfect, and granted, we parents aren't perfect. But neither is a system perfect, containing lots of teachers, who each carry with them the possibility of imperfection. A teacher has no more ability to teach a child that is not his own, and in fact, has less. The natural way of the world has been, for thousands and thousands of years, that parents teach their children what needs to be taught. It's only been in the last few hundreds of years that the whole "institutional" school thing has developed. But naturally, our memory for history is so short, we forget this small fact.

The teacher is taught methods of "herding" and keeping 29 students occupied and happy in one room. The teacher teaches to the mid-level of the students. The teacher may try to individualize teaching for a few students, but they could never individualize teaching for all 29. Homeschooling provides that individual learning. Homeschooling is the equivalent of tutoring one-on-one. Teachers who have problems with students who either fall behind or get ahead often suggest tutoring because tutoring is good for students.

Parents have a better ability to teach their own children because of an important fact: they love their children and want what's best for them. Now many parents abdicate this responsibility to the state, and you get what you pay for there, if that's your choice. You should have the ability to have a say so in the matter, since, after all, your tax dollars are at work, but in general, you can attend all the home and school meetings you want to, and life at your child's school isn't really going to change.

Perhaps the education level in California is better than the rest of the nation. Perhaps their record of abusing children is better than the other 49 states. Perhaps California kids are passing standardized tests, getting into MIT and Harvard and Smith at higher rates than the rest of the nation. Perhaps California really has an educational system to be proud of. But I haven't heard those things, so I'm a little sceptical that that's the case in California.

I've noticed a curious trend in schools these days. Schools are demanding more and more education for their teachers. I know of kindergarten teachers who have their Master's Degrees. And I've also noticed, seemingly at the same time, a huge lack of education going on in the schools. Kids not passing test, misbehaving, becoming bullies, doing group math and watching a lot of movies, etc. Seems to me that kids learned a lot more in the old one room school house where discipline was demanded and the standards were high, and the teacher had just a bit more education than the students. If you look at a McGuffey reader or a spelling book or a math book from back then, and you will not believe kids were doing that work in 3rd or 5th grade. What some high school seniors cannot do today.

So, what do I think about California? There is a family that needs help. The system responds by saying the old "it takes a village of PhDs". Everyone has become so expert, no one has any common sense any more. Check the test scores. Who wins the geography and spelling bees in this country? How come colleges and universities all suddenly have recruiters for homeschoolers? Are homeschooling families the only place where abuse is found?

Our educational system is broken in this country. There are a few pockets of goodness. For the main part, though, we should take government out of the business of education. When governmental funds are removed from the situation, I think we'll find some real education can take place.

I think the court system must be broken, as well, to have let this situation happen.

Actual Video of Chesterton at Worchester College

First time I've *seen* this. I've heard the audio before, but didn't realize the audio was taken off a movie camera. Very, very cool.

Dr. Thursday's Post

Forward For Frank to the Circle and the Cross

Because of the passing of dear Frank Petta, it might be urged on me that I should forgo my usual Thursday speculations. (I note the Latin root of "speculation" means the same as the Greek root of the mystic Theoria... seeing and sight; recall the blind man in last Sunday's gospel!)

However, it would be a stronger wine than ever Frank brewed, and a better joke than ever Frank told, for me to do the One Thing which Frank delighted in - read GKC, ponder GKC, and urge GKC to others... so I shall, with a fond delight, and hoping for YOUR accompaniment, proceed to explore the next fragments of our centennial masterwork, Orthodoxy.

Note: today's post finishes Chapter II: "The Maniac", and so is a bit long, so I have kept my introduction short. Some of the richest bits are in these concluding paragraphs, so grab your knapsack, some water and a snack or two for the journey, and let's go! Click to proceed.

Recall that we have just considered the very complex matter of a type of lunatic - one who is crazy about determinism, or about materialism, to the utter abandonment of any other possibility. But he, like the simple madman of Hanwell or your own local asylum, has lost the universe in clinging to a singular truth. No horror grips the casual reader than these strange words from GKC's pen:

...you may say, if you like, that the bold determinist speculator is free to disbelieve in the reality of the will. But it is a much more massive and important fact that he is not free to praise, to curse, to thank, to justify, to urge, to punish, to resist temptations, to incite mobs, to make New Year resolutions, to pardon sinners, to rebuke tyrants, or even to say "thank you" for the mustard.
[CW1:228, emphasis added]

I am sorry, there are quite a number of things which are very clearly "determined" - that is, where simple physical causation explains the action. It may be as simple as a bowling ball hitting the pins for a strike, or as complex as the photons striking the chlorophyll in a green plant to produce wood or apples or wheat or grapes... BUT. I should be insane if my delight in these clearly explicable things (which incidentally permit me to write English, type it, and have it come to you elsewhere in the E-cosmos) would somehow lead me to lose the ability "to say 'thank you' for the mustard." That would be insane.

This error gives rise to a variety of related ones. GKC mentions just one - which is likewise horrifying since it is so prevalent in this time. I shall not examine it at length, but just mention that it is the strange view that somehow "crime" is a kind of "disease" to be remedied by change in the environment. But you ought to ponder that paragraph for yourself; it deserves far more than a paragraph of examination.

But we must proceed. The next case GKC takes up is the exact opposite of the materialist lunatic "who believes that everything began in matter" It is the man "who believes that everything began in himself":

He doubts not the existence of angels or devils, but the existence of men and cows. For him his own friends are a mythology made up by himself. He created his own father and his own mother.
[CW1:229]

This is even more horrifying. That poor fellow "is alone in his own nightmare", for him,

The stars will be only dots in the blackness of his own brain; his mother's face will be only a sketch from his own insane pencil on the walls of his cell. But over his cell shall be written, with dreadful truth, "He believes in himself."

Perhaps, since that is quite bothersome, you ought to hear GKC's response to the man who believes:

that he is always in a dream. Now, obviously there can be no positive proof given to him that he is not in a dream, for the simple reason that no proof can be offered that might not be offered in a dream. But if the man began to burn down London and say that his housekeeper would soon call him to breakfast, we should take him and put him with other logicians in a place which has often been alluded to in the course of this chapter.
[CW1:229]

Yes. Now, we have taken up two extremes, opposite forms of lunacy - Why?

...this panegoistic extreme of thought exhibits the same paradox as the other extreme of materialism. It is equally complete in theory and equally crippling in practice. ... The man who cannot believe his senses, and the man who cannot believe anything else, are both insane, but their insanity is proved not by any error in their argument, but by the manifest mistake of their whole lives. They have both locked themselves up in two boxes, painted inside with the sun and stars; they are both unable to get out, the one into the health and happiness of heaven, the other even into the health and happiness of the earth. Their position is quite reasonable; nay, in a sense it is infinitely reasonable...
[CW1:229-30]

Ah. Do you recall our little geometric conundrum about the circle, and another about infinity? We must now go deeper - far deeper - and up onto a much higher peak. We shall start to see something.

...there is such a thing as a mean infinity, a base and slavish eternity. It is amusing to notice that many of the moderns, whether sceptics or mystics, have taken as their sign a certain eastern symbol, which is the very symbol of this ultimate nullity. When they wish to represent eternity, they represent it by a serpent with his tail in his mouth. There is a startling sarcasm in the image of that very unsatisfactory meal. The eternity of the material fatalists, the eternity of the eastern pessimists, the eternity of the supercilious theosophists and higher scientists of to-day is, indeed, very well presented by a serpent eating his tail, a degraded animal who destroys even himself.
[CW1:230]

GKC has led us through a very complex and torturous (that word means "twisted", not "painful") journey through a very unpleasant place - but we have been able to see some marvels, and we are about to be given our next tool. This is a very startling one. It is rather like the one we are already carrying, which tells us to have extremes conjoined - and we saw what happens when one chooses the one or the other of the extremes! But we are going to have a powerful result, in a more precise form, and it is by use of reason.

This chapter is purely practical and is concerned with what actually is the chief mark and element of insanity; we may say in summary that it is reason used without root, reason in the void. The man who begins to think without the proper first principles goes mad; he begins to think at the wrong end.
[CW1:230]

In order to use reason we need proper first principles, just as in geometry there are things we take as given, and which we do not prove. Once we take the right starting points, we can do many useful things - even discover England. But we need that starting point!

Do you mean, Doctor, that this is just another attempt by GKC to start a discussion?

Not quite. Just as in The Phantom Tollbooth Milo stops thinking and lands in the Doldrums, and is rescued by the Watchdog who forces him to Think, we need to be startled by the dead ends of insanity.

(Remember, we are not making some sarcastic snippy quip about those who have pathological diseases of the mind; we are talking about the strange parallel between such failures and those who, though mentally capable, have chosen not to start thinking at all.)


Yes, GKC's next words do seem to hint that we are just beginning, perhaps because he wants us to consider just what it kind of a journey we are on:

And for the rest of these pages we have to try and discover what is the right end. But we may ask in conclusion, if this be what drives men mad, what is
it that keeps them sane? By the end of this book I hope to give a definite, some will think a far too definite, answer. [CW1:230]

I must here make an aside, but it is rather just a comment about our situation. GKC did write mysteries, but in one of the most profound essays ever written about detective stories, he said:

...we cannot really get at the psychology and philosophy, the morals and the religion, of the thing until we have read the last chapter. Therefore, I think it is best of all when the first chapter is also the last chapter. The length of a short story is about the legitimate length for this particular drama of the mere misunderstanding of fact.
[GKC ILN Aug 19 1922 CW32:432]

Indeed - and right here in Orthodoxy he demonstrates this principle. Rather than try to hide his solution, he immediately gives it away:

But for the moment it is possible in the same solely practical manner to give a general answer touching what in actual human history keeps men sane. Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that. Thus he has always believed that there was such a thing as fate, but such a thing as free will also. Thus he believed that children were indeed the kingdom of heaven, but nevertheless ought to be obedient to the kingdom of earth. He admired youth because it was young and age because it was not. It is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man. The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand.
[CW1:230-1]

I have pointed out this business of sight several times; now we see, rather dramatically, the mystery of the Man With Two Eyes. (There's key phrase in GKC's Manalive: "Man found alive with two legs".) This is the dramatic restatement, like a musical theme now played by full orchestra, of the idea of keeping both extremes. This can only by done mystically - but it must be done in order to be sane.

What happens when one REFUSES this? Well, you've heard the answer enough in this chapter. Hanwell. But in practicality, what it means is the complete loss of reason.

Insanity: "The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious."

Sanity: "The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid."

Insanity: "The determinist makes the theory of causation quite clear, and then finds that he cannot say 'if you please' to the housemaid."

Sanity: "The Christian permits free will to remain a sacred mystery; but because of this his relations with the housemaid become of a sparkling and crystal clearness. He puts the seed of dogma in a central darkness; but it branches forth in all directions with abounding natural health." [all from CW1:231]


And now. The seal. The geometric matter which is described at length in GKC's The Ball and the Cross is here stated in - let us say - Euclidean precision:

As we have taken the circle as the symbol of reason and madness, we may very well take the cross as the symbol at once of mystery and of health. Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in its centre it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travellers.
[CW1:231]

You may wonder at the reference to Buddhism; I must defer that for the present. But the geometric aptness of the symbols is not really a matter of debate... they may only go so far anyway, as GKC proceeds to note:

Symbols alone are of even a cloudy value in speaking of this deep matter; and another symbol from physical nature will express sufficiently well the real place of mysticism before mankind. The one created thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in the light of which we look at everything. Like the sun at noonday, mysticism explains everything else by the blaze of its own victorious invisibility.
[CW1:231]

There you see a repeat, even more powerfully, of the line above: "He puts the seed of dogma in a central darkness; but it branches forth in all directions with abounding natural health." But there are other echoes from other places. Perhaps I have quoted this before, but it is the perfect matching jewel to this word-nexus. As usual, it is the fictional variant of a non-fictional exposition:

"The greenness, that I walked like one in a dream, stretched away on all sides to the edges of the sky. Sleepily, I let my eyes fall and woke, with a stunning thrill, to clearness. I stood shrunken with the shock, clutching myself in the smallest compass.

"Every inch of the green place was a living thing, a spire or tongue, rooted in the ground, but alive. Away to the skyline I could not see the ground for those fantastic armies. The silence deafened me with a sense of busy eating, working, and breeding. I thought of that multitudinous life, and my brain reeled.

"Treading fearfully amid the growing fingers of the earth, I raised my eyes, and at the next moment shut them, as at a blow. High in the empty air blazed and streamed a great fire, which burnt and blinded me every time I raised my eyes to it. I have lived many years now under this meteor of a fixed Apocalypse, but I have never survived the feelings of that moment. Men eat and drink, buy and sell, marry, are given in marriage, and all the time there is something in the sky at which they cannot look. They must be very brave.
["A Crazy Tale" in CW14:70]

Now, for something Far More Amazing. This idea is not original to GKC! Consider this:

"If I fail to see this light (of God) it is simply because it is too bright for me. Still, it is by this light that I do see all that I can, even as weak eyes, unable to look straight at the sun, see all that they can by the sun's light."
[The Proslogion of St. Anselm, quoted in the Office of Readings for April 21]

Remember, we have been talking about sight... Sight, or its weakness, or its lack, is the conclusion of this chapter:

Detached intellectualism is (in the exact sense of a popular phrase) all moonshine; for it is light without heat, and it is secondary light, reflected from a dead world. But the Greeks were right when they made Apollo the god both of imagination and of sanity; for he was both the patron of poetry and the patron of healing. Of necessary dogmas and a special creed I shall speak later. But that transcendentalism by which all men live has primarily much the position of the sun in the sky. We are conscious of it as of a kind of splendid confusion; it is something both shining and shapeless, at once a blaze and a blur. But the circle of the moon is as clear and unmistakable, as recurrent and inevitable, as the circle of Euclid on a blackboard. For the moon is utterly reasonable; and the moon is the mother of lunatics and has given to them all her name.
[CW1:231-2]

For background you might wish to read "The Eye of Apollo" in The Innocence of Father Brown. And you may need to know a bit of Latin: luna means "moon".

But for now, we have completed a very important and difficult phase (no pun intended) of the journey. As we think on this, and on the risks and obligations we have considered, may we pause for a time in prayer to thank God for our vision - but also ask, as the blind man did: "Lord, that I may see." [Luke 18:41]

--Dr. Thursday.

Share your memories of Frank

If you liked to reminisce about Frank a bit, or share a memory, I think that would be a good thing. You can do it here in the comments, or here.

Frank Petta's Death Notice

Elgin Courier

Frank A. Petta

Frank A. Petta, 89, of Elgin passed away Monday, March 3, 2008 in his home. He was born March 12, 1918 in New York, NY, the son of Victorio and Rosa Maria Petta.

Frank was Baptized at St. Anthony of Padua and received first communion at the Church of Transfiguration in 1929. he graduated from St. John's University in Brooklyn and served two years in the US Army Air Corps. He then attained his Masters Degree from Columbia University. Frank was a teacher and taught in New York and Chicago for many years prior to retirement.

He had a life long interest in the ideas and writings of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, an English journalist and author of many books. With others, he founded the Midwest Chesterton Society, and helped start an annual conference. Frank had been a member of several Pro Life organizations, and was director of Elgin Birthright for several years.

He was a member of St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Elgin.

Survivors include his wife, Ann, whom he married on March 23, 2002; a sister-in-law, Ethel Petta of New York; along with niece, Theresa Catherwood; and nephews, Fredrick, Joseph and Robert Petta; and many cousins and family.

He was preceded in death by his parents; and his brother, Louis Petta.

Funeral Mass will be celebrated on Friday, March 7, 2008 at 10:00 A.M. in St. Thomas More Catholic Church, Elgin with Rev. Geoffrey Wirth officiating. Burial will follow in Mt. Hope Cemetery, Elgin. Visitation will be on Thursday from 4-8:00 P.M. at Laird Funeral Home, 310 S. State St. (Rt. 31), Elgin, IL 60123, 847-741-8800, and on Friday at the church from 9:30 A.M. until the Mass. Memorials directed to St. Thomas More Building Fund.

Funeral Arrangements for Frank Petta

Frank's funeral will be Friday 10:00 am at St. Thomas More in Elgin IL and the wake is Thursday evening from 4-8:00 pm at the Laird Funeral Home in Elgin.

Some memories of Frank Petta

Here are some remembrances of Frank. If you have any stories you'd like to share, let's do it here. I think this is a fitting place to remember a man devoted to Chesterton.

Frank Petta

Frank died yesterday afternoon, March 3rd, at 4:15 PM. May his soul rest in peace.

And now, something from Dr. Thursday.

In Memoriam Frank Petta.
by a recipient of his generosity.

Frank sent me photocopies of the GKC "Our Note-Book" essays from the
last five years of the Illustrated London News, and my mother
read them to me so I could type them into AMBER, as they are in such
poor shape they cannot be scanned.

Thanks, Frank. Please pray for us. Ask my mom about the fun we had doing
them.

--Dr. Thursday, sometimes called the AMBER Collector.

More Petta Wine, Please
by Dr. Thursday

The Midwest[1] gang of G. K. Chesterton,
Who G.K. read, drink beer, and bacon fry,
Who ponder paradox which some still stun,
Have met to thank God rightly[2], mugs to ply
Though we now miss our friend, a G.K. guy,
Who cheered them too, with jokes preserved in brine
And friendship rich; but they heave a sigh:
If only we could get more Petta wine.

This man, Frank Petta, totes no wedding gun[3]
He found (I don't know how or when or why)
An Illustrated London News full run
And reaped the columns written on the fly
So by the Grim Recycler they won't die.
Ignatius pressed the word lodes of Frank's mine,
Then the Midwest drank; still for more they spy:
If only we could get more Petta wine.

Now Frank for eighteen years shared that same sun
Which through old England's fogs did strive to pry
And light Top Meadow where was sown the fun
In essays kept by Frank's observant eye.
At Midwest meetings he is never shy:
Frank, who with a friend[4], still does reap the vine,
So that the G.K. meetings don't go dry:
If only we could get more Petta wine.

Frank, the earth spins on, the years go by,
God says "again"[5] the rising sun does shine;
Your fruitful vines have spread - they reach the sky...
If only we could get more Petta wine.

__________________
notes:

1. This poem was originally written for Frank's birthday in a time
before the ACS. In the interest of history I have not altered this term.
Then again the ACS meetings are still in the Midwest, so it really did
not need to be altered anyway.
2. See OrthodoxyCW1:268: "We should thank God for beer and
Burgundy by not drinking too much of them."
3. See Autobiography CW16:43 "I stopped on the way [to his
wedding] to drink a glass of milk in one shop and to buy a revolver
with cartridges in another."
4. Ann Stull, whom he married after a LONG courtship.
5. See Orthodoxy CW1:263-4: "It is possible that God says every
morning, 'Do it again' to the sun."
Here is Frank at the very first Chesterton Society meeting, 27 years ago. He's towards the front with an orange shirt. Ann is second from the left, sort of across from Frank. He attended every single one of them for 26 years. We'll miss him this year.

Pope B16: The Mozart of Theology

"Pope Benedict’s sensitivity for the beauty in music and art as much as his particular affection for Mozart’s style may well be one of the explanations not only of his well-rounded style, but also of the intellectual architecture of his theological writings, which are characterized by a high degree of perfection, with a rare combination of simplicity, clarity, depth, and both logical and persuasive power.

That’s why Cologne Cardinal Joachim Meisner calls Pope Benedict the “Mozart of Theology.” Cardinal Meisner developed this further in a homily that he gave on the occasion of the Pope’s 80th birthday in St. Hedwig’s Cathedral in Berlin:

“Pope Benedict XVI has the gift of pointing out to people the sanctifying message of the Gospel in its beauty, fascination and harmony, so much so that he is called the ‘Mozart among the theologians.’ His theology is not only true and good, it is also beautiful. His words sound like music in the ears and hearts of people. He manages masterfully to transform the notes of the Gospel into thrilling music. That’s why the stream of pilgrims that flock to his audiences is growing every month.”

Something we have in common. Mozart is my favorite composer, too.

EWTN Programming Error

Due to a programming error, the Fourth Season of the Apostle of Common Sense will begin on March 9th, not yesterday, the 2nd, as was previously reported.

Thanks, and hope you'll watch next Sunday.

Keep Praying please

At the request of Frank's wife Ann, I'm asking you to please keep praying for Frank. She reports that he is at the end of his life, and will only live a day or so. He is 89 and would turn 90 March 12.

Thanks everyone.

Please Join us in Prayer for Frank Petta

Please pray for Frank Petta. His wife Ann tells us he is "very sick".

Frank is one of the original 25 people who started this Chesterton Group 27+ years ago.

He founded the Chicago Chesterton Society. It added Milwaukee and became the Midwest Chesterton Society with annual conferences. Then it became the American Chesterton Society with headquarters in the Twin Cities.

Thanks for the prayers, God's will be done.

Baby Worship

Ronald McCloskey reminded us that the thing that is in us that loves babies, will love Dickens.

And that reminded me of the "In Defense of Baby Worship" essay that Chesterton wrote, and that I love. Here is a little bit, and if you click on the title above, you can get a bigger piece of the essay.

" If we could see the stars as a child sees them, we should need no other apocalypse. . . We may scale the heavens and find new stars innumerable, but there is still the new star we have not found - [the one] on which we were born. But the influence of children goes further than its first trifling effort of remaking heaven and earth. It forces us actually to remodel our conduct in accordance with this revloutionary theory of the marvellousness of all things. We do actually treat talking in children as marvellous, walking in children as marvellous, common intelligence in children as marvellous. . . [and] that attitude towards children is right. It is our attitude towards grown up people that is wrong. . ." GKC

Baby worship is right. So is all-people worship. Every man is a child of God, made in His image and likeness. It's just often harder to see what's wonderful in an adult; nonetheless, we adults are still marvels, and marvelous, each and every one of us.

The Chesterton Academy Advisory Council

Just Announced: Members of the Chesterton Academy advisory council.

Please Join the new Chesterton Library Connection Yahoo Group

What the heck is that-- you ask?

What if you found out there was a way to get your library to buy the Chesterton books you wanted to read?

What if you could influence your library to purchase Chesterton books so that your goofy friends and neighbors would read Chesterton so you could have a decent argument with them?

What if your library had Chesterton on its shelves and the local high school and college kids had the chance to read something worth reading for a change?

Well....you CAN influence your library. You can suggest library purchases. And I'm here to help YOU to help US get more Chesterton into YOUR local library. How?

If your library has a website go to it now and see if you can make purchasing suggestions online. If so, make a suggestion. If not, next time you visit the library ask for a patron request form and then fill it out.

Some tips:
--The form you need to fill out may be called a variety of things: patron request, item request, purchase suggestion, or something similar.
--Sometimes it's easier to ask a main library instead of a suburban or branch library.
--You'll have a better chance of a purchase at a big library than a small one which needs to get rid of books to save room.
--Titles published in the past year are more likely to be purchased. Librarians want their purchases to have a long shelf life and so are weary of older books.
--If you do suggest an older title, make sure to comment that it is a "classic" and will be checked out for years to come.
--Don't give up if you feel that your suggestions are ignored. Your voice will eventually be heard!
--Tell all of your like-minded friends to make purchasing suggestions too. There is power in numbers.
The Three Yahoo Groups:
For Chesterton purchases:GKChestertonLibraryConnection : G.K.ChestertonLibraryConnection
For Catholic purchases:
PopeSaintNicholasV : Catholic Book Lovers Influencing Library Purchasing Decisions
And for Homeschool Book purchases:
HomeschoolLibraryConnection : Homeschoolers Influencing Library Purchasing Decisions

It's easy to join, and I promise you won't get any junk mail or even too much mail. Suggestions go out approximately once a week.

Sonic Society presents: Father Brown Readio Dramas

Thursday's Dr. Thursday Post: Infinity

It may be a stretch of the imagination to connect last Sunday's gospel (the woman at the well) with our discussion of last Thursday - or perhaps not. The woman's "madness" was shattered - as if a spell was broken - by the Voice of Authority who told her "Go get your husband". So deep was her restoration that she was able to bring others to that same fountain... Ah. But for today I shall resist plunging into the deep waters this imagery brings up.

In thinking of insanity, and Lent, I must bring to your attention one of the most unusual and perhaps most insightful views of a gospel event I have ever read. The event is the "Good Thief" hanging in crucifixion next to Jesus - an apologist defending Christ even on Calvary! "We are but suffering as we deserve - but This One has done nothing wrong... Lord, remember me when You come into Your Kingdom."

The insightful view is not mine. It is contained in the rich notes and the amazing play-sequence, "The Man Born To Be King" of Dorothy L. Sayers (DLS), a series of radio plays she wrote on the life of Christ. I don't have the text here to transcribe, so I shall merely give you a hint of her argument. She claims that the Good Thief perhaps took Jesus to be a harmless nut-case - a crazy man - YET - the thief still treats Him kindly, and "plays along" - only to receive a most unexpected reply. The scene DLS only hints at is the one I love to ponder: for behold, later that day, the Lord would tell the thief, "Nope, I wasn't nuts, but it was kind of you to think so. The charity you showed to the harmless lunatic You showed unto Me!" A strange, yet somehow most dramatic view. Read it for yourself.

I had previously thought I would write up a "proof" about GKC's interesting mathematical bit about the circles, but there will be more of this philosophical geometry before you know it, and I don't feel like making such a long detour today. So let us proceed. We have finished GKC's comments on lunacy and madness - which he expresses using the mystery of the circles: infinite in one sense (for it has no end) yet still not so very large (for it is no bigger than it is drawn). We have seen an omnibus labelled "Hanwell" and thought about those unfortunates who believe themselves to be chickens, or glass, or Kings of England, or Jesus. We have heard of the limits of literature, the risks of reason - and been challenged to cut off our own head if it offends us. What is all this? Why are we seriously contemplating insanity? GKC has a reason, and not merely a poetic one.

Click here to continue the adventure.

GKC tells us himself what he is up to:

I have described at length my vision of the maniac for this reason: that just as I am affected by the maniac, so I am affected by most modern thinkers. That unmistakable mood or note that I hear from Hanwell, I hear also from half the chairs of science and seats of learning to-day; and most of the mad doctors are mad doctors in more senses than one. They all have exactly that combination we have noted: the combination of an expansive and exhaustive reason with a contracted common sense. They are universal only in the sense that they take one thin explanation and carry it very far. [CW1:225]

We might take this as the bridge-passage, the musical riff that brings us from Heretics to Orthodoxy. Recall that in Heretics we saw a long line of men - writers, thinkers, philosophers - men whom GKC respects, even admires - some of whom he would readily claim as friends - and yet men with whom he is in bitter and utter disagreement: "a Heretic - that is to say, a man whose philosophy is quite solid, quite coherent, and quite wrong." [Heretics CW1:46]

Those men are the men LIKE the lunatics. Note he does NOT say they ARE lunatics! He is not pulling an ad hominem argument. He is talking about a general idea, dealing with the IDEAS of those men. What does he tell us about them? He says those are the men with the SMALL PATTERNS, even though they are "infinite":

But a pattern can stretch for ever and still be a small pattern. They see a chess-board white on black, and if the universe is paved with it, it is still white on black. Like the lunatic, they cannot alter their standpoint; they cannot make a mental effort and suddenly see it black on white.[CW1:225]

He proceeds to give an example (about materialism) but almost immediately points out that he is NOT making an argument about the detail, but about the generality. He links the flaw in the materialist view of the kosmos back to the flaw in the man in the asylum. It may be true enough. But it is so much smaller a truth than can be found elsewhere.

I hope you are reading along with me - and so you will readily note that it is futile for me to try to skip the example. GKC himself tried to do that. In one of his amazing leaps, he goes from that example to a stark generality of epistemology (the study of knowledge itself): "In one sense, of course, all intelligent ideas are narrow. They cannot be broader than themselves." [CW1:226] It is the paradox of words, the strangeness of a homework assignment like "Define 'infinity' and use it in a sentence." It hints at another mysterious line of GKC's which he put in another mystery: "Alone on earth, the Church affirms that God himself is bound by reason." ["The Blue Cross" in The Innocence of Father Brown]

Whew, let's stop for a bit. Do you feel stuck in a swamp of ideas? You are wrong. It's the brisk fresh air. You are at a peak of a mountain, and seeing a vista. It's at these points where you feel most congested, you are actually most free, and actually presented with a greater wideness of vision than elsewhere. So let us pick this matter apart so we can grasp where we were and better handle where we're going next. I can't do all the epistemology, I didn't bring that in my knapsack today. Let's see if we can deal with it directly. Let's read it again:

"In one sense, of course, all intelligent ideas are narrow. They cannot be broader than themselves."

The point of the paradox is we can handle things far bigger than our hands - because we have words which can reduce infinity to eight letters. (Count them: I, N, F, I, N, I, T, Y.) The strict philosophers will now throw eggs at me, saying I have committed the "Fallacy of Equivocation", confusing the word "infinite" and the idea "infinite". But I catch the eggs, and scramble them to make our lunch. They are not reading along. (Recall "poetry floats on the infinite sea"...) It would be just as adequate for me to cite the Summa of Aquinas (I Q10 A1) to help them out, since they like that kind of citation, it shows I do read those kinds of things. Ahem! But for us, this "paradox" is as simple as this mountain-peak. We're stopped here - and need to choose a path. But we can choose ANY direction - as long as it's down. (We are walking, you know; remember we said last week, "let it be solved by walking".)

The "fallacy of equivocation" is a kind of error in logic, in the use of words. How about an example? Here's one: saying "God is limited because he is only three letters long". But GKC is telling us there is the same kind of error in saying "we cannot hold the idea of 'infinity' since it is INFINITELY BIG". It is a paradox in reason itself, not merely written by GKC, to state without further quibble, that Infinity is narrow, and God is limited. This is not because of the things-in-themselves, but because of our equipment. (We are on a journey, we are NOT going EVERYWHERE AT ONCE. We are walking, and so are SOMEWHERE.)

I will try once more. (This one is great, and will shock any computer scientists in the audience.) Watch carefully, and I will use YOUR computer to represent BIG integers, including for example, the number of electrons required to fill the sphere bounded by the diameter of the most distant galaxies. Or, even bigger: the factorial of that number. Or even bigger: that number raised to its own power... that many times. Big numbers. BIG big numbers. HUGE numbers. (Even more than GKC weighed.) I can even use the computer to deal with transfinite numbers, the mysterious "aleph-one", which is the cardinality of the real system of numbers. And there are even others... Wow, look: before your very eyes, all those things are being communicated by what I have just written! HAVE I NOT COMMUNICATED THEM TO YOU? Of course I have. They are formally represented - as ideas. No, not directly as tick-marks on a sheet of paper or tokens in a box. (Please. Don't be silly. When was the last time you saw 1000 of ANYTHING? We gave that up about 5000 years ago, when the Egyptians began to write Ç to stand for "ten".) You cannot represent such gigantic numbers by that means. It is like asking how much God weighs. It does not have meaning. But you can communicate the idea of such numbers - which means you have communicated the number. The idea of such vast quantities has a meaning, and so we can accomplish the communication of that idea. And if we failed to say it in symbols of mathematics, we would resort to the symbols of poetry: I think of "Tonight" in "West Side Story":

Today the minutes seem like hours,
The hours go so slowly...
And still the sky is light...

That is what GKC is saying. In order to talk about anything, and reason about anything, we use something narrow. We do not have the infinite time or an infinite box of tokens to play around with the real thing, so we use what we can.

OK. Maybe it was futile - I ought to stick to my own toys - so let's resume with GKC, and I will let the high-tech philosophy for others to play with. Perhaps this next sentence will tell you the same thing, which is just GKC's own version of the very important Principle of Contradiction: "Nothing can be, and not be, at the same time."

A Christian is only restricted in the same sense that an atheist is restricted. He cannot think Christianity false and continue to be a Christian; and the atheist cannot think atheism false and continue to be an atheist.
[CW1:226]

Again, please read this carefully. You need to think about the simple sentences, not about some deep quippy insult or brag. You can put in any partisan or sectarian words you like, and it has JUST the SAME meaning and power. YOU ARE ON A PEAK of FREEDOM, my friend, not stuck in a swamp! Try it again. Then we'll proceed.

Now that you have a NEW tool, then, we shall actually approach this example of materialism - and its opponent, spiritualism. (We are using the terms rather generically here; materialism means there is nothing but material: nothing spiritual at all. Whereas spiritualism means there also exists an unseen realm.)

I shall quote at length again, because you are surely tired of reading MY words, and also because the "verbal fireworks" here are SO good:

...there is a very special sense in which materialism has more restrictions than spiritualism. Mr. McCabe thinks me a slave because I am not allowed to believe in determinism. I think Mr. McCabe a slave because he is not allowed to believe in fairies. But if we examine the two vetoes we shall see that his is really much more of a pure veto than mine. The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle. Poor Mr. McCabe is not allowed to retain even the tiniest imp, though it might be hiding in a pimpernel. The Christian admits that the universe is manifold and even miscellaneous, just as a sane man knows that he is complex. The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman. But the materialist's world is quite simple and solid, just as the madman is quite sure he is sane. The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation, just as the interesting person before mentioned is quite sure that he is simply and solely a chicken. Materialists and madmen never have doubts.
[CW1:226-7]

(An aside: if you are wondering who "McCabe" is, you can read his chapter in Heretics CW1:157 et seq. Joseph McCabe (1867-1955) was a Roman Catholic priest turned rationalist.)

And while I greatly doubt that you can possibly be satisfied with my writing, here I must leave you for today. Please try to think a little about these things. Not about the math, or about the epistemology, the knowledge OF meanings of words and ideas - but ABOUT the meanings, and the ideas.

Still lost? When we think about our mother (let us say) we do not think about her picture, but about HER. But when we talk about her, we may show the picture, or use that six-letter word - but everyone knows who it is we are talking about, even if they have never met her or seen her. IN THE SAME WAY: when we think about infinity, we do not think about that splendid and funny little proof of the math dudes about "increasing without bound" or about a bottomless box of tokens - nor simply about that eight-letter word - but we use that word to talk to others about, as I have just done with you.

And this limited limitlessness applies even to the matter of God, which we do not narrow to a mere word of three letters, and Who has even more meaning and even more intimacy to us than our very mothers...

Onward to the next the peak, dudes!

--Dr. Thursday

Reading Orthodoxy and discussing it

As this is the 100th anniversary of the publication of Chesterton's masterwork, Orthodoxy, I have the feeling there are many discussion going on in the world about this book.

A highly unusual look at Orthodoxy.

The Wikipedia entry for Orthodoxy.

A student stumbles upon EWTN.

Raw thoughts on Orthodoxy.

Notre Dame is teaching Orthodoxy.

Dale Ahlquist discusses Orthodoxy.

Now, if you read all that, you may be prepared for the 27th Annual Chesterton Society Meeting in June. Each speaker will be taking a chapter from Orthodoxy and discussing it as best he/she can. Educational level will be high, but so will the humor level. Come if you can.

Lamp-posts

Robert Moore-Jumonville has a great meditation in the Jan/Feb Gilbert magazine on lamp-posts, and Gilbert's poem entitled, "The Lamp Post."

I wonder if C.S. Lewis ever read that poem, and if it didn't make the lamp-post in Narnia become a reality. So to speak.